Current 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) long term evolution (LTE) specifications define a scalable set of signal bandwidths, ranging from relatively low bandwidths (e.g., 1.4 MHz and 3 MHz) to relatively high bandwidths (e.g., 20 MHz). A user equipment (UE) operating in a wireless network often supports the full set of bandwidths. Moreover, there is an underlying assumption that evolved Node Bs (eNodeBs) and UEs attached to eNodeBs use the same operating bandwidth.
UEs operating in a typical wireless network can include terminals for use by a human user as well as machine-type communication (MTC) devices and machine-to-machine devices (M2M) that often operate with little or no regular human interaction. Many MTC and M2M devices do not require high throughput and low latency performance characteristics and thus can successfully operate in narrow signal bandwidths, for example 1.4 MHz and 3 MHz signal bandwidths. Recent trends have shown an increased interest in providing support for narrow bandwidth MTC and M2M devices operating in a cell using a wider bandwidth. Mobile network operators may wish to introduce support of narrow bandwidth devices because of demands from the low end MTC market to substantially decrease the cost of LTE terminal. However, due to PHY layer constraints legacy systems do not support operation of narrow bandwidth devices. For example, LTE legacy systems use wide bandwidth transmission of LTE control channels on the downlink and MTC and M2M devices are thereby required to support wide bandwidth signals in order to reliably operate on the broadband network.
Thus, there exists a general need to provide methods and apparatuses to enable or optimize operation of narrow bandwidth devices in wideband LTE deployments by providing narrow bandwidth transmission of control channels.